Posts

My highlight of the trip though was not the northern lights (we went in September - right at the start of the season and we were too lazy to go out late at night to search for them) and it was not the Blue Lagoon (neither of us are spa fans, and the price and the man made aspect of the place put us off - I'll never make it as an instagrammer)

No, the thing that I loved the most was the ice.

Iceland is mostly green and Greenland is mostly ice, that's just one of those odd things. But there is ice in Iceland, even in the warmth of the late summer.

Somewhat scarily the glaciers are shrinking though, far too quickly. But for now, we can still visit them and marvel at the chunks of ice falling into the sea and washing back up onto the black volcanic sandy beach at Jokulsarlon.

Last year I discovered a new festival and it was great. I don't know why I have only just found out about Cornbury as this will be its 16th Year! I love a grown up feel to a festival, neither a kids's festival (though I do love those for being silly, it's also nice to sip a glass of chardonnay in a deckchair while listening to something 'mummy likes' once in a while), nor a teen festival (I'm all for the odd late night rave and drunken stagger back to the tent at 4am occasionally but sometimes I like to be more...refined) The Cornbury Festival at the Great Tew Park turned out to be just lovely.

The flat ground meant that we could easily get all the tent things to our pitch. There were comedy tents, a vintage cinema, a helter skelter, even a 2p arcade, candy floss, a WI tent and local children performing on the smaller stages. The whole glorious relaxed vibe was ably assisted by perfect English weather.

#AdGifted What's that about? As you know each year I'm an ambassador for Camp Bestival and 2019 will be no different. I am here to tell you all you've ever wanted to know about Camp Bestival and share my past photos and fun stories from past years in exchange for gifted tickets to the main event.
I've been attending Camp Bestival since my daughter was little and she's grown up in the embrace of one of the safest festivals I know. Over the years she has braved climbing walls, made sticker models and flower crowns, eaten pies in fields and watched brave wasp tamers. I'm hoping that 2019 at Camp Bestival will bring more of the same. This year the festival is being held over the weekend of the 25th -28th July.

Camp Bestival is family festival. I cannot stress that enough. It is the perfect festival for the 'new to festivals' type and still excellent fun for the festival fan. Safe to bring the entire family, including babes in arms, and an excellent festival…

I booked the bucket list holiday of my dreams this year and at the beginning of September my teen daughter (DD) and I set off for Iceland for 6 days. I had decided to not bother with the Northern lights or the Blue Lagoon as neither really attracted me. I did want to see all the usual touristy things near Reykjavik (where we would be based) though, and I lazily didn't want to hire a car.

So our holiday was a relaxed affair, with tourist buses, no camping, no hiking, and a fair bit of city walking. We did squeeze in a whale watching trip.

With that in mind I looked at weather forecasts and made clothing plans. Because as we all know, there is no bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.

Icelandic weather in September isn't cold, but it can feel that way due to wind chill (very strong winds) and lots of rain. So I looked for wind and waterproof clothing and some new walking boots. I also made sure I'd got enough pairs of Heat Holders socks because if I know one thing about t…

Before going to Boomtown, but after I had, on a whim, purchased tickets, people were keen to tell me what to expect. To be fair to them, some of these people seemed to assume that a 52 year old woman would be shocked by drug taking and horrified by a festival loo. And on the whole, the reactions I received upon mentioning 'I'm off to Boomtown next year' were those of shock and horror. I was variously told :
"you'll hate it, it's a full on festival"
"Rather you than me, it's not a family festival"
"People die there you know, it's all drugs and gangs"
"The music isn't anything you'd like"
"It's a lot of walking, really hilly"
and my favourite :
" 'king hell, rather you than me, you'll die"
Reader I did not die. It is true that a lot of drugs are consumed at Boomtown, keys of ket seem to be as much currency as the great British pound. I…

I've been to a few festivals over the summer, Cornbury, Camp Bestival and Boomtown Fair and have tried the delicious food on offer at each one. This year for an added bit of excitement DD has become vegan so the extra challenge to feed her has been fun. No longer can I just grab a burger or a pie and mash...so what have I been eating and how have the festivals fared?

At Cornbury, which is a smallish festival, there was a fairly good selection. We had to option of vegan curries, vegan pizzas, paellas, and other snacks, including falafels (the vegan staple!) and spicy vegan burgers, this last item being DDs favourite and she returned a few times for the same thing! Goodness Gracious Healthy Foods was at all the festivals we went to and scored a firm 5 stars as they even had vegan cake options!